Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 - 1764)

Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera, and was attacked by those who preferred Lully's style. Rameau's father was the organist at the cathedral of Dijon, and had his son practicing harpsichord at the earliest age possible. However, Rameau began his studies in the field of law before deciding that the study and composition of music was his true passion. He spent much of his youth in Italy and Paris, and for a time followed his father's footsteps as organist at Clermont Cathedral. Rameau was perhaps most well known for his theories regarding tonality through basses fondamentales or root notes, the idea that chords remain equivalent under inversion, described in Traité de l'harmonie (1722) and Nouveau système de musique théorique (1726). It wasn't until he reached his 40s that Rameau achieved prominence in the field of composition, but by the death of François Couperin in 1733 he was arguably the leading French composer of the time. From then on he devoted himself primarily to opera, starting with Hippolyte et Aricie (1733). He collaborated with Voltaire on a number of operas, in particular La Princesse de Navarre which earned him the King's title of 'Compositeur de la Musique de la Chambre'. At the end of his life Rameau also became a character in Denis Diderot's - then unpublished - dialogue Le neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew). Even if he never composed a real symphony, he especially showed his skills in the operatic genre as an innovator of orchestral music and orchestration, influencing and anticipating the music of the Classical music era, Romantic music (Hector Berlioz), and even Stravinsky's neoclassicism in a short prelude in his last opera, Les Boréades (1763). Brahms uses the theme of one of Rameau's pieces, 'The Birds', as a subject for one of his chamber works. (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
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Suite in D major, Z. 667